M.: Within. If the mind is turned inward God manifests as inner consciousness.

D.: God is in all - in all the objects we see around us. They say we should see God in all of them.

M.: God is in all and in the seer. Where else can God be seen? He cannot be found outside. He should be felt within. To see the objects, mind is necessary. To conceive God in them is a mental operation. But that is not real. The consciousness within, purged of the mind, is felt as God.

D.: There are, say, beautiful colours. It is a pleasure to watch them.We can see God in them.

M.: They are all mental conceptions.

D.: There are more than colours. I mentioned colours only as an example.

M.: They are also similarly mental.

D.: There is the body also - the senses and the mind. The soul makes use of all these for knowing things.

M.: The objects or feelings or thoughts are all mental conceptions. The mind rises after the rise of the I-thought or the ego. Wherefrom does the ego rise? From the abstract consciousness or Pure intelligence.

D.: Is it the soul?

M.: Soul, mind or ego are mere words. There are no entities of the kind.Consciousness is the only truth.

D.: Then that consciousness cannot give any pleasure.

M.: Its nature is Bliss. Bliss alone is. There is no enjoyer to enjoy pleasure.Enjoyer and joy - both merge in it.

When an ajnani sees the world and its colours and contours, he gets immersed in them and forget the Self within. Whereas aJnani sees within him and experiences the Self. After the experience,permanently abiding within, even if he looks at the colours and contours, he sees only God or the Self.

When Muruganar was in the Asramam, someone wanted him to cometo Chidambaram, with him. Muruganar said: What can I see there?My eyes have lost the powers to see anything else. I am experiencing the Hall of Consciousness within. Where is the need to see Tiru Chitrambalam (Hall of Consciousness where Nataraja dances).

I would like to discuss this concept of mithya a little more in small steps.What are the characteristics of mithya? Is it the transient nature of mithya (compared to satya) you are highlighting, or do you have some other characteristics also in mind?

Now let us elaborate one more step.The horns of a hare, does not exist in the external world, but exist within the mind (as imagination etc) for a finite time period. Since horns of a hare does not exist in the external world, that is why it is not available for perception. So we can say, Asat does not exist in the external world but exists within the mind (as imagination) for a finite time period.

Mithya is something which does not exist in the external world but appears to be existing in the external world, like a mirage in the desert.

But this definition of Mithya does not suit spiritual experiences, because spiritual experiences often does not appear to exist in the external world. For example when a person sees light within during meditation with eyes and ears closed, he does not attend to the external world.

So bringing the term external world seems to have brought some distortions.So we need to elaborate the term "non-existent" further. Non-existent where? Is it non-existent in the external world? (the horns of a hare example seems to point to non-existence in the external world)

Scriptures tells us to enquire the relationship between god and world but it does not tell that god created the world and etc etc... it is like relationship between pot and mud. mud is god and pot is world. So pot is neither true not false but it is dependent on mud. because pot can break any moment and finally only mud is remaining.

Mithya means it is dependent on other thing like pot which is dependent on mud.

Ideally there is no relation between pot and mud as pot is nothing but mud and there are no 2 entities to have relationship.Similarly between god and world.

As per bhagavad gita lord krishna tells everyone/everything is in him and not otherwise.waves belong to ganges but not otherwise.

Below are bhagavan ramana's views regarding maya...

Quote

Talk 144.

Mr. Prakasa Rao: What is the root-cause of maya?

M.: What is maya?

D.: Maya is wrong knowledge, illusion.

M.: For whom is the illusion? There must be one to be deluded.Illusion is ignorance. The ignorant Self sees the objects according to you. When the objects are not themselves present how can maya exist? Maya is ya ma (maya is what is not). What remains over is the true Self. If you say that you see the objects, or if you say that you do not know the Real Unity, then are there two selves, one the knower and the other the knowable object. No one will admit of two selves in himself. The awakened man says that he himself was in deep slumber but not aware. He does not say that the sleeper was different from the present one. There is only one Self. That Self is always aware. It is changeless. There is nothing but the Self.

Another time guru ramana says,

Quote

Talk 17.

D.: What is illusion?

M.: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish.Generally people want to know about illusion and do not examine to whom it is. It is foolish. Illusion is outside and unknown. But the seeker is considered to be known and is inside. Find out what is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant and unknown.

An actor who has set out to enact a character in a drama, forgets that he is the actor and continues to play the character thinking it to be Himself. This is Mithya. Anything else that is associated with this character, the happennings everything though it seems real, is all Mithya. all the incidents around that character seems so real, but it is just 'enacting' and not real. This is Mithya. Forgeting oneself, the Actor, thinking the character to be real, which is actually 'Not Real' or 'Not True' is is Asat.

In our daily life, we are actuallly playing so many roles, so many characters, at home we play the role of son/daughter/brother/sister/father/mother etc... and at work, we play the role of administrator, manager, programmer, etc... and as a friend, soulmate, husband, wife etc...

Life is such a big cinema made in such a massive scale, so many roles, each one of us are super hero, actor, enacting so many roles, characters.

We just stay put in one of those characters always... depending on our thinking and emotional pattern - as a wife, husband, friend, btother... what ever.. as the case may be. your current thinking would determine your character your are playing.

All these roles are Mithya, they appear to be real, but we are none of these roles, characters! are we? am I a husband? am I a wife? am I a friend? no... I am beyond all these...

Now, since all the drama happens around only those roles and not you, they dont belong to you, the Role, character is Asat, its not real. After all days hard work, when we go to sleep, all alone, nobody by our side, who are we? who am I then? am I any of those characters? if yes then which of those character is going to sleep? is it husband? wife? daughter? son? brother? administrato? manager? friend? ?? who is going to sleep?

none of these are going to sleep...

what is Asat is all those roles we play, all those characters are really unreal.

I am the one, on whose presence, all these are happening.

I am that Sat - the unambiguous, eternal silent witness without any judgement. Just that awareness of truth. Awareness, Consciusness. Continues, Bliss.

I am summarizing the flow of discussion to avoid diversion. Let the discussion continue in small steps only. Please reply to the immediate next step or if you have any objections with the premises itself. Premises if found faulty can be altered as the discussion continues. I am defining the term external world for clarity.

Premises:External world: World a person perceives through the senses. If two persons are there, one sleeping and the other waking, the sleeping person has no external world during the period of sleep while the waking person has an external world. The dreams of the sleeping person will not be considered as external world but will be termed as "dream world" of that person (which exist upto the period of the dream). Similarly a person in deep meditation not perceiving anything through the senses will not have any external world during the period of deep meditation.

We started with the two definitions:1. Asat: What is non-existent and not available to perception: e.g. horns of a hare.2. Mithya: What is non-existent but appears to be present, like a mirage. It is also changing and time dependent.

Further Analysis:Now the next part of the analysis is on the term "non-existent". Is existence or non-existence as used in the definition of "Asat" and "Mithya" with respect to the external world only? Or does it include imaginations of mind, dreams etc also (i.e anything which is also not part of the external world)?

Mithya means a fantasy; an unreal, misleading appearance beheld in dream or hallucination

According to my personal view you cannot say it is 'non-existing'. It is neither 'existing' or 'non-existing'.

As i told earlier Sri Sundara Chaitanya Swami garu says,

Scriptures tells us to enquire the relationship between god and world but it does not tell that god created the world and etc etc... it is like relationship between pot and mud. mud is god and pot is world. So pot is neither true not false but it is dependent on mud. because pot can break any moment and finally only mud is remaining.

Mithya means which is dependent on other thing like pot which is dependent on mud.

Ideally there is no relation between pot and mud as pot is nothing but mud and there are no 2 entities to have relationship.Similarly between god and world.

Mithya is seemingly real but really unreal. The rope appears asa snake in a dim light. For sometime, you are afraid. Thensomeone brings a torch light and shows the light and you findit to be only rope. So is the mirage. As you go near the mirage,you find that there is no water. Only the road.

Asatya is ever unreal. It is explained by similes like the hornsof a hare or a child of a barren woman. These horns and childrendo not remain your mind at all. How can one conceptualize the horns for a hare? The very term maladi in Tamil or barren woman, says that she has no issues. How can one conceptualize the child for her?

Satya is all time real, and nothing but real. Even in a dark room, a little child, if I call: Where are you Hari, answers I am here. It needs no external light for the child to find out that He is.

Dear prasanth_ramana_maharshi & Subramanian.RYou gave two characteristics of Mithya:1. An appearance or fantasy2. Dependence on other things like pot and mud

Further Analysis:An appearance or fantasy or impossibility (like hare with horns) can be considered to exist for a finite time within the mind as imagination. They do not consume space but consume time.Pot is made up of mud. If matter and mind are mithya, what are they made up of?

Dear srkudai,You gave the following characteristic of Mithya:- What is in the mind is Mithya. Mind means perception.

Further Analysis:Does perception include only the perception through the five senses? Where is its boundary?When a meditator loses body consciousness in meditation, is he/she still perceiving?

The possibility that a rope can be mistaken for a snake shows that a "phenomenon" exists which can give rise to this error. There is a difference between nothing happens and something happens whether that something be illusion, delusion or whatever. Each individual magic of a magician can be an illusion, but that a magic show is going on cannot be said to be non-existent.

If yesterday we had a dream, we cannot say that the dream was non-existent. The dream took place and it ended. Only the dream world which I saw yesterday is non-existent today. If the dream itself was non-existent, we will say "yesterday I did not have a dream".

Suppose we have a dream that there is a bag of gold under a tree. We go there and find that there is none. We never repeat going there anymore. But even after a person becomes jnani, he continues to engage in the world. If hunger, thirst etc are non-existent (mithya), why does the jnani continue to have food and drinks?

The possibility that the rope is mistaken for a snake exists because of existence of knowledge of snake and ideas about it. Even the ideas about happenning or not happening is all because of some already existing knowledge of events and similarly about the illusions of a magician.

Existence of Mithya basically is because of some already preconceived knowledge about the subject matters.

There for who is the one that has been possessing all these knowledges? That is the repository of all knowledges sum of all total past lives of ours. Who is that 'I' then?